Five Things That Never Happened to Nikki Heat
by fialka62
Summary: ...and One That Happened to Kate Beckett. Meta AU. Sometimes, even Castle needs a fic fix. Now complete.
1. We Didn't Start the Fire

_five things that never happened to Nikki Heat..._

1) WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE

She comes to with a god-awful ringing in her ears, like she's sixteen years old and has spent the night at CBGBs dancing by the speakers. Ears ringing, head splitting, yup, must be the morning after a really good night out. She can still smell the smoke from the club on her clothes. Her mother is probably so pissed off. Again.

It takes Nikki Heat a moment to realise that the intermittent noise she hears above the ringing is someone calling her name, and it's not her mother calling her and completely freaking out, her mother's been dead for years. The huge weight on her back disappears and she's grabbed by a pair of hands. Suddenly she's fighting back hard because for god's sake what's up with the light, and the smoke which is totally not cigarettes from a club, and why does it hurt so much to breathe or move _and who the hell is touching her like that? _

'Nikki! Nikki, it's me, stop!'

It's loud enough, close enough that she can hear it, and though the voice is completely distorted, there's something about it that's okay, familiar. She blinks her eyes open and it's Jameson Rook's face above her, sweat and grime coating his skin. It's Rook holding her, rocking her, patting her face and her arms and her legs, bending close enough for her to read his lips.

'You're alive. You're alive, thank god.'

'I'm alive? What happened? Why are you here?'

It comes back then, his panicked call and the mechanical voice. Running like hell for the bedroom, diving under the mattress praying it was going to be enough. Clearly, it was. She hurts in more places than she can count, but not the kind of hurt that says something vital has been pierced, something bony broken. Just the kind that says tomorrow is going to be exceptionally unpleasant.

Rook is still talking but she can't hear, and she can't breathe with him in her face like that. She pushes roughly at his shoulder and tries to sit up. That is not so good. That is, christ, that's her ribs and maybe her shoulder, and the world spinning, and for a moment she has to stop moving because she's sure she's going to throw up.

'Nikki, damn it, let me help!'

He's yelling loudly and right in her ear, so she hears that just fine. She pushes at him again. 'My ears are ringing bad enough, Rook, without you creating permanent damage.'

She's pushed him away, but now she finds she needs him after all, because her legs are strangely wobbly and she's finding it difficult to walk. The headboard of her bed will only help so far, and the heat of the wrought iron is a shock that's slowly clearing the fog from her mind. She looks around and realises she's standing in a pile of burning wreckage that used to be her home.

'We have to get out of here,' she says. Rook is nodding inanely, mouthing more words. She takes a step towards him, and another, and really she must be in shock because it takes the horror on his face to alert her to the fact that she's walking barefoot on burning embers and god knows what else.

It's not until he puts his coat around her that she realises her feet are not the only thing that's bare. Clearly she should never take showers at night. Bad things keep happening when she does that.

Rook is gesturing for her to put her arms around his neck and she shakes her head. She had shoes here someplace, didn't she? A closet? A sudden burst of heat to her left signals the end of that. It's all starting to burn around them, everything she owns, everything of her mother she still had left. That's a pain that's worse than the ribs, worse than the indignity of Rook hooking an arm behind her knees and hauling her into his arms whether she wants to be there or not. And then he's carrying her through the living room and there's nothing, fucking absolutely nothing left.

By the time they hit the entrance to the building they're both shaking, he from the effort and she from the shock that's either wearing off or setting in. 'You're never going to shut up about your manly rescue, are you?' Nikki says, as the ambulance crews jump into action at their appearance.

'Nope,' Rook huffs, directly in her ear. 'I'm gonna have to explain this hernia somehow.'


	2. Don't Stop Till You Get Enough

_five things that never happened to Nikki Heat..._

2) DON'T STOP TILL YOU GET ENOUGH

Whatever need the bomb has set loose in her, this is one of those times when it won't be sated. She was like this after her mother died, too, but then it was anybody. Rook is right, this is better than that. This is someone who knows her body, and somehow the fact that this is not a relationship has made it easier to say what she wants, to do things she might have worried about if she was trying to impress him into sticking around. This isn't her one, this is only skin and heat and friction. This is both of them with their clothes only half off; this is Rook thrusting into her from behind and Nikki with her forearm braced against the wall and her other hand between her legs, helping herself along.

She comes with her mouth pressed against her arm, so hard there's teeth marks when she's done. Rook doesn't last much longer, which is good because her legs really don't want to hold her up anymore.

For a few moments they just lie slumped at the base of the wall. She's managed to get her clothing back together, but the blood is still pounding everywhere he touched. Rook is sprawled beside her, his pants pulled up but still undone, as if the zipper is just too much effort right now. Considering the way he's breathing and the sweat shining on his forehead, maybe it is.

He rolls his head and looks at her hazily. 'Better?' he asks.

'Yeah.' That it is, though she won't admit how much. This keeps the parts of her locked away that need to stay locked away, but reminds her that she's still alive, still young enough, attractive enough, to do what career girls do in Manhattan when they don't have the energy for anything real but don't want to spend their thirties gathering dust. Anything more is not going to work for her. Not with Jameson Rook, journalist to the stars. Probably not with anyone.

She pats the hand Rook has let fall onto her thigh and makes herself get up. In his bathroom, she runs cold water over her face and damp fingers through her hair and decides she looks together enough. She'll shower when she gets home. Or maybe go for a run. Or maybe shower and go back to the precinct, have another look at the board. Her head feels clearer now, maybe she'll see something she didn't before.

Rook's on his feet when she returns, jeans properly zipped up. He's holding his shirt in one hand, looking around like he's lost something, and she's pretty sure he's looking for buttons. She looks at the muscles in his arms and stomach and considers a second round, but to be honest the first one's left her a little sore.

'Wear a t-shirt next time, it'll be easier,' she says, gathering up her bag and coat.

'Next time we could try the bed,' he answers.

'No.' It's out of her mouth so fast there's no time for her brain to kick in and stop it. Bed is where you do things when you're becoming a couple. This is not that. This is not even pretending to be that.

'No,' he agrees, though she can't quite read his face when he raises it to look at her. 'Couch at least? Padded stool?'

She feels a smile flicker at the edge of her mouth. 'I'm the one who has to do it in heels, what are you complaining about?'


	3. Is It Me You're Looking For?

_five things that never happened to Nikki Heat..._

3) IS IT ME YOU'RE LOOKING FOR?

Rook answers the door with a kitchen knife in his hand and not a stitch of clothing on his body. Not his typical someone's-ringing-the-bell-at-1am behaviour, but then he just got home from a twenty-five hour flight from Melbourne to find that someone had jimmied open the downstairs door and stolen Tom from 1c's bike and Mrs Prabhanarthy's stroller and he's feeling disoriented and vulnerable in a way he doesn't like at all.

The other thing that's not typical is seeing Nikki Heat through the peephole.

He puts the knife down and flips the locks, sticks his head demurely around the door. 'What, are you GPSing me now? How'd you even know I was home?'

'I just, you said..' She steps back and shakes her head, as if to clear the image of him naked from her eyes. 'I wasn't thinking. Sorry, out of line.'

'Nikki!' In the time it takes him to grab a jacket from the rack by the door and wrap it around his waist, she's already made it to the elevator and is punching the button over and over. Fortunately for him the elevator is a wheezy octogenarian that's in no hurry to groan its way up from the ground floor. She stops torturing the button and moves away before he can reach for her, which is a good thing because he's not too sure that the elevator won't retaliate by getting stuck somewhere like the second floor, and he's on the ninth and not too fond of climbing airless staircases in July.

'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have just come over,' she says quickly. 'I know the rules.'

She has that proud, brittle look he's coming to know all too well, the one where her back is straight and her head is up, but she's staring at the ground. He's pretty sure it's not really shock at his state of undress. It's not like she hasn't seen the full package before.

'Nik, it's fine,' he says. 'You can come in, if you don't mind my dirty laundry all over the living room.'

'No, it's okay. I should have texted first. Go back to bed.'

'Only with you in it.'

Her head jerks up and for a brief moment she's open to him, as vulnerable as he's ever seen her. 'I didn't come here for that,' she snaps, and the moment is gone. And the goddamn elevator is groaning to a stop.

He takes the last two steps and snakes his free arm around her waist, pulling her against him before the doors can open. 'We can do or not do whatever you want,' he murmurs into her ear. 'But can we do it in my apartment, because I'm pretty sure the old lady in 9b is watching and I don't need her heart attack on my conscience if I happen to lose hold of this jacket while I stop you from getting on that elevator.'

Her head bends forward to rest on his shoulder. He takes the opportunity to nose through her soft cloud of hair so he can kiss the back of her neck. She sucks in air, as if she's been denying herself even the comfort of breath, and presses against him. God only knows what's been happening down at the precinct while he's been gone; he can't imagine how bad a case would have to be to make her show up at his door at this hour in this condition.

'Come inside,' he whispers. 'Please.'

He feels a shiver run through her, and then the softening of posture that says yes, he's gotten through. He lets Nikki lead the way back, giving Mrs. Olson a jaunty wave as he passes by her door.


	4. Hands Across the Water

_Smut alert. Just in case you hadn't noticed this was M :)_

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><p><em>five things that never happened to Nikki Heat...<em>

4) HANDS ACROSS THE WATER

She's a vocal lover, not so much by talking dirty or giving directions, but through a complicated codex of moans and sighs and groans. Rook knows how to read those now. He knows how close to the edge he can bring her without letting her go over, how to wind the tension tighter with each loop until she's speaking a language with no consonants, clutching his ass so hard he's got no choice but to keep doing exactly what he's doing exactly where she wants him to do it, if he ever wants to get his dick back at all.

He takes a moment to catch his breath when she's finished, still so deep inside he can feel the aftershocks rolling down her spine. He wonders if one day he's going to stroke out trying to keep up. His rock-star life of late nights, good booze, and a number of substances he's smart enough not to discuss with a cop is starting to pay him back, and though he can feel Nikki's heart beating hard and fast against his arm, his own is punching at the back of his eyeballs, making him see alternately black and red.

He presses his lips against the pulse throbbing madly just beneath her jaw, tastes the salt of her skin. Nikki, for her part, scrunches her shoulder against her neck, squeezing his now-sore ass as a warning to stop before she makes him a very sorry boy.

'I'm not gonna be able to sit if you don't let go of that,' he whispers in her ear. 'And if I can't sit, I can't drive, and if I can't drive, there'll be no margaritas for you on the back deck in the Hamptons this weekend.'

'No neck or _you _get no dirty weekend,' she orders and releases her grip, smoothing her hands over his sore cheeks as if wiping away the red that surely must be there. 'Neck tickles.'

'No neck,' he agrees, reapplying his lips to the hollow between her collarbone and her shoulder, equally tasty but much less ticklish. Slowly, he draws himself out, then pushes his way even more slowly back in, earning himself a very satisfying groan.

'Like that?' he grins, trying it again.

'Terrible. Can't sta- oh, god. Mmf.'

She's relaxing now, eyes half-closed, her face absolutely at peace. Beyond beautiful. He keeps the rhythm as leisurely as he can manage for as long as he can, savouring the way she feels, her body softly enveloping his, inside and out. At last though, need gets the best of reason and he loses the ability to modulate, to hold back, to aim for the parts of her he knows work best. All he can do is thrust and be, until suddenly he feels glory in a most unexpected place and his brain explodes, taking his body right along with it.

He slowly becomes aware that something is thumping on his lower back. Nikki's heels, fortunately minus her shoes, which she must have kicked off at some point. Her lower legs are the only thing she can move, the rest of her is pinned beneath his weight.

'Rook,' she growls, directly in his ear. 'Can't breathe. Wake up.'

He struggles to lift himself at least partway. Enough to give her some air, and to see her face. 'Did you just do what I think you just did?' he asks, in the voice of a thirteen-year-old getting his first glimpse at Playboy.

She blinks without changing expression, her poker face. 'I have no idea what you mean.'

He realises he's holding one of her arms above her head and the other clamped against his side. Her finger is no longer where it went, but the pat on the ass he receives confirms his suspicion. His dick tries to salute her ingenuity, but manages no more than a feeble wave. Rook imagines it sprawled face down in exhaustion inside her, much as the rest of him was sprawled across her body just a minute ago.

She's going to be the death of him, surely, but he'll embrace that extinction cheerfully when it comes.

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><p><em>Thanks for the reviews, everyone! Glad to see the metaAU is working. Part 5 tomorrow..._


	5. How Soon is Now?

_five things that never happened to Nikki Heat..._

5) HOW SOON IS NOW?

Jameson Rook is about to say something he hasn't said to a woman in a very long time and isn't too sure he meant when he did. He'd mean it if he said it right now, which may be why Nikki Heat is riding him to death, trying to get him to do what any normal red-blooded guy would love to be doing to her, instead of lying on his back half-frozen with fear.

'Rook!'

'I don't want to just use you,' he blurts.

She has no leverage in this position, so she has to settle for bouncing on him hard, which kind of hurts. 'You're not using me if I like it. Which I did until you stopped, so could you please continue? Now, before someone kills someone somewhere and I get called in.'

And clearly God is a joker with no respect for either of them, because right at that minute he hears the muffled ring of her phone. 'God _damn _it,' Nikki spits, and clambers off him with more speed than finesse. Rook closes his eyes while she fumbles through their clothes and when he opens them again she's snapping 'Heat', and she's 100% Homicide, never mind her hair wild in her eyes and the candlelight glowing softly off her bare skin.

She turns away, gracing him with a fine portrait of endless legs rising into a firm, nicely rounded ass. He wonders what his own ass looks like at this moment. Surely not so firm or smooth and quite possibly bruised. There are two distinct spots burning where she likes to grab him, but he doesn't dare feel around to check.

'Right, fine, I'm on my way.' She finishes the conversation, brusque even for Nikki Heat in detective mode, and slaps the phone shut.

'So, we've got a body,' he says.

'No, I've got a body. You've got an apartment of your own, and I suggest you go back there.' She stops to look at him for a moment, already in the act of disentangling her clothes from his, and he gives her his best puppy dog eyes.

'You're gonna make me miss this one for punishment?'

'Rook, believe me, if I want to punish you, I can think of far more exciting ways to do it.' She finds her underwear and starts getting dressed, blissfully unselfconscious about doing so in front of him. Which, considering that she was helping him take her clothes _off _not half an hour ago, should surprise him less than it does. Nikki Heat is, ever, nothing less than a challenge.

'I'll call you from the scene, okay?' she says. 'But we are not going down there together.'

'Nik.' The soft tone makes her look up from the button of her trousers much more effectively than shouting. She's only half dressed, and he can still feel her breasts warm and soft against his palms; he can taste her in the back of his mouth. So long it took them to get this far, and lately everything seems to conspire to keep them apart. 'Don't go in. You can't be the only detective in New York. Let them call someone else.'

'The nightshift is already out. Somebody's gotta catch it.' She finds her bra and slides it on. It's the red one she wore the night she impersonated a Russian whore to get his ass out of an illegal poker den unshot, and to tell the truth, he's been dying to hear that accent again ever since. 'This is my job, Rook. You knew that about me before we started. You know what it takes to do what I do.'

'I know.' And yeah, he feels humbled by that. Not just by her, but by all of them. It's a nobler calling than he ever dreamed, being a cop. Maybe that's why he likes it so much, being out there with them. Being real. That first article blew everyone at Cosmo out of the water because for once, he'd been writing about something real. And just when it's starting to look like maybe _this_ could be real, reality just _has _to go and and get ugly on them. Again.

'I know,' he tries, 'I just...' He spreads his hands and indicates her bed, her home, her life that she's only just starting to share.

She comes closer, staring at him the way she stares at the board when she's almost, nearly, figured something out. 'You're afraid,' she finally says. 'You're afraid that you had your chance and you blew it.'

'Well, or it got blown.' He hears himself and suddenly panics. 'Urm...so to speak.'

A smile twists the corner of her mouth, just the one side before she gets it under control. 'You will get blown another time, _Jameson_,' she growls, leaning so close her breath warms his lips before she kisses him. 'That much I'm willing to promise.'


	6. Midnight at the Oasis

_and one thing that happened to Kate Beckett..._

MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS

It's way past midnight when Richard Castle stops for breath, or at least for a good long stretch. His long-patented response to a world he doesn't always understand is simple: _write it out._In twelve-point Arial on a clear white screen, sometimes things make sense.

He looks over the evening's work. What started as notes for a novel about Nikki Heat hunting a killer who's hunting her has turned into something quite different. Rescue and escape the way he wishes it had gone, though there's not one thing about the naked part he wanted to change, except not getting a good enough look. He did have to find a more plausible way for Nikki to escape a bomb than jumping in her tub - clearly it works, but it's such an unbelievable cliché.

But the rest...well, he doubts those other scenes will ever find their way into print. Some things a writer writes just for himself.

He hears noise in the kitchen and closes the laptop, tiptoes to the door of his study to see who's there. It's Beckett, looking lost in the wine-coloured t-shirt he's loaned her for nightwear. She's quietly rooting through the cabinets, like a child searching for hidden chocolate.

'Looking for something?' he asks, joining her in the room. He's spoken quietly, so as not to startle her, but she jumps anyway.

'I'm not snooping. I was just looking for-'

'Another cocoa? Or something stronger?'

A look crosses her face, eagerness quickly replaced with guilt. It might indeed have been the cocoa she was after, but clearly she'd welcome a good belt of something else. He can see the dark circles around her eyes from where he stands ten feet away, and though she went upstairs hours ago, it doesn't look like she's slept. He hopes she's finally let herself cry, even just a little. God knows if he'd just lost everything in this loft - his baby pictures of Alexis, his manuscripts, his gifts from famous fans - he'd be completely freaking out. Beckett's got more control than he does, but everybody's got their limits.

'I was just about to have my thousand-word nightcap,' he says. 'I'm sure there's enough for two.'

He's a little surprised when she doesn't object, just leans against the counter with her arms folded protectively over her chest. 'You make yourself a drink every time you manage to write three pages?' she asks, as he's filling the kettle. 'No wonder the Nikki Heat books are so thin.'

'Well, if my inspiration would ever sit down to eat a full meal in my presence...' He feels a sharp flick on the back of his head. 'And ow.'

'You saw me eat a cheeseburger, a milkshake, and half your fries that night at Remy's. Don't think that just because it happens offscreen, it doesn't happen.'

He puts the kettle on the stove and sets the burner on high. 'Oh, believe me, Detective Beckett. I have nights where I think about nothing else _but _what happens offscreen.'

He slides out of reach before she can flick him again and fishes a bottle of brandy out of an overhead cabinet. Not the best stuff, that's locked away in his study, but the decent enough VSOP he gets by the carload around Christmastime from fans. Most of that gets regifted - the staff in his publisher's office, the security guards in his building, the mailman and the super and whoever else he comes across in December that seems likely to drink it - but he always keeps a few bottles himself. For medicinal purposes, of course.

The first bottle of the year is gone, and the second is already half empty. Castle sighs. Alexis may miss her grandmother, but his liquor cabinet will not. He sets the bottle on the counter and starts amassing the other ingredients: lemon, honey, cardamom, vanilla, and the biggest mugs he can find.

'What are you making?' Beckett asks, in a tone that suggests she's annoyed with herself for being interested.

'Nectar of the gods. After this, you will sleep like a baby.'

'My mom always said I woke her up every hour on the hour for the first year and a half.'

He hears a faint smile in her voice and looks up in time to catch it before it fades away. One of these days he's going to make her smile for real, that huge sunshine-lollipops-and-rainbows grin he's only ever seen in the family photographs on her bookshelves.

All of which are gone now, burnt to a crisp.

It's a sobering thought. He looks around his home, but he still can't quite imagine what she must be feeling right now. His mind just simply doesn't want to go there.

Nor does hers, by the expression on her face when he looks at her again. 'Martha,' he says quickly, setting out the mugs and pouring a very happy dose of brandy in each. 'Not much for teaching me how to cook, but I could do every drink in the bartender's guide by the time I was fourteen years old.'

'So where did you learn to make pancakes?'

'There are these things called books. In which one can find all kinds of information, as well as really hot detectives.'

'I see. Trial and error.'

He tops up the mugs with the hot water, adds a tablespoon of honey, a cardamom pod, and a dash of lemon and vanilla to each. 'Kyra,' he finally admits, turning around to hand Beckett her drink. 'Kyra taught me. Kyra civilized me.'

'I'll have to send a card to thank her.'

The words echo through the open space of the loft and come back to them meaning something quite different. Their eyes catch and hold, neither able to break free. It's happened before, each time for just a little bit longer than the last. One of these days they're going to get stuck like that, forgetting to eat or sleep, until somebody finds them dead and still upright, still staring at each other, still frozen in indecision.

'Ask her if she's got my Rolling Stones _Hot Rocks _album,' Castle finally manages to say. 'It's been missing since 1995.'

Beckett flashes a tight smile and sips her drink, closing her eyes as the hot brandy slides down her throat. He can see her shoulders visibly relax, the strain etched into her face beginning to smooth out. Beckett's face should not look the way it's looked the last few days. It should be preserved as a work of natural art, the hard edge of cheek and jaw offset by the gentle depth of her eyes, the soft curve of her mouth. There's no angle at which he doesn't find her something between lovely and heartstopping. He wonders what she'll look like when she's old, and if he'll still be around to find out.

He wonders, too, what would have happened if they really had lost her last night, if he would ever have dared to write another word. Or maybe he'd have written nothing _but _Nikki Heat until the day he died, giving Beckett all the life she wouldn't have had.

'Kate...'

She opens her eyes, but before he can say anything else, she shakes her head. 'I'm all right.'

'I know, but-'

'It's just stuff. It can be replaced.'

There's so much she's lost that can't, but he doesn't push the point, doesn't try to stop her when she thanks him for the toddy and tells him it'll probably work best if she drinks it in bed. He sips his own drink and watches her go, promising himself that one day, soon, they _will_ talk about this, damn it. And maybe then he'll know what needs to happen next.

Meanwhile, tonight, Jameson Rook is about to get lucky again.

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><p><em>As always,<em>_ kudos to the Deep Fried Twinkies (now residing at the newly christened Hotel Beta!) for making this story far better than it was. It's been a fun six days, my thanks to everyone who came along._

_Remember, reviews are like chocolate: not necessary for life, but still awfully yummy when you get some :) _


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